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Magazine
INDIA BEATS
Trading tradition
SUBHA J RAO
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The oldest shandy in South India is fighting to keep a hoary tradition alive.
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In the shandy, you can find things that you don’t even know about.
Photo: K. Ananthan
Come, Bargain: A grocery store at the sandhai.
For a generation so used to shopping in the air-conditioned comfort of departmental stores, a village shandy is a world apart. Slushy pathways, gunny bags and rupee notes that have changed hands innumerable times. And, if that shandy happens to be the Gandhi Vaara Sandhai (weekly shandy) in Pollachi, 40 km from Coimbatore, the beehive of activity is a dead giveaway that it is one of the oldest and largest in South India. Even today, traders from as far away as Thiruvananthapuram come here to buy jaggery in bulk, and cattle.
It’s still early in the day on a warm Thursday morning and people load and unload unending baskets of garlic, tomato and other vegetables; others check out embellishments for their cattle. Others have a definite shopping list in hand — a replacement for the lorry steering wheel, and the torn cleaner’s seat. Another holds aloft a bag that is bursting at the seams. A smiling tailor beckons and agrees to stitch it for two rupees.
Familiar world
For old timers, who have been visiting the shandy (spread over 40 acres) for decades, it is as if time has stopped still. Some produce is still brought in by bullock cart. Betel leaves are still folded in a particular way, and sold on a tray fashioned out of creamy-white banana stem. And you still get things as ancient as arappu (a fine green powder used to wash hair) and nelumi (husk ash, used to clean vessels).
No one really remembers when this whole business of trading was initiated — it is estimated to be a little more than 125 years old. But, when it started, it was nothing short of a festival. Traders from nearby village had arrived in bullock carts, piled high with baskets of farm-fresh produce, immaculately twisted coir ropes, wicker baskets, gunny bags bulging with pulses, bundles of betel leaves and a lot else besides.
As for the buyers, the sandhai was a smorgasbord of goodies. They would hit the shandy in the morning by the hundreds, mill around the stalls, strike great bargains, haggle for a little more, sit down to a leisurely packed lunch, and then happily lug home the week’s provisions by evening.
Some shopkeepers, their faces wizened with age, recall how there would be no place for people to walk around. “No one ever moved on their own. They just got carried forward by the crowd,” say Rangasamy and Muthulakshmi, who have been selling pulses out of gunny bags here for 30 of their 33 years of marriage. These days, the crowd and the business have substantially come down, thanks to the mushrooming of departmental stores, so the couple has all the time in the world to squabble, make up, and squabble yet another time. “How else do we spend time?” quips Rangasamy.
But, that has not stopped traders from coming here. Even now, close to a thousand shops come alive in the shandy every Thursday. Some shops function through the week. To cater to the sea of people who hit the market, temporary food stalls spring up, serving everything from watery tea and coffee to bajjis,
vadas and tomato rice. The spare parts section deals in everything — bent fenders, grilles, used seats, axles… Most shops are decked up with unusable parts.
Many roads criss-cross the shandy and each of them leads to a different world, where traditions such as bargaining are still respected. Some shopkeepers hate selling to those who don’t bother to strike a deal. “That’s the whole thrill of a sandhai. Where else can you check out the rates in many shops, and then haggle for the price you want?” asks Saleem Mohammed, who sells areca nut and related products.
The biggest blow the retail sector has dealt is to those selling perishable goods. Murugaatha has been selling betel leaves for 40 years now. She brings leaves in two baskets, worth Rs. 500, to the shandy. But, of late, she has been taking back more and more unsold bundles home. “People just don’t come,” she rues, even while recalling a glorious time when her stock would be sold out by the afternoon.
Sense of belonging
The shandy functions out of Municipality land and people take stalls on lease. But there is a huge sense of belonging. “This place is not anyone’s, but on Thursday, it belongs to everyone,” remarks Pattanam Subramania Thevar, who manufactures coir ropes.
Where else can you find things that you don’t even know about. Take, for instance, the wooden plough. Most farmers have switched over to iron ones or machines, but Kalimuthu still makes them out of karuvelam (Indian Gum-Arabic tree) wood. “Our forefathers say the yield is better when the land is ploughed with this plough,” he insists.
The shandy has been a learning experience for many. Industrialist N. Mahalingam, 85, says he learnt to peel fruits after watching his friend’s father do so at the sandhai. “Thursday used to be a holiday for schools, and we would spend a lot of time running about in the sandhai, wearing garlands of mango peel,” recalls the former MLA from this town.
The sandhai can still teach modern stores a thing or two about salesmanship and trust. When Kanagaraj has to leave his store for some time, his neighbour helpfully handles customers. What about competition? “Who has ever benefited by it? We should all live and let live,” he says.
That is something K. Ranjith Kumar agrees with. His family has been dealing in vegetables here for more than a hundred years, from his great grandfather’s time. Though he still has his clientele, he rues the reduced importance of the shandy. “There is just not enough respect now,” he says, even as his hands count out rupee notes inside a cloth bag. “Earlier Pollachi’s primary glory was this place. Now, we depend on the town to keep it going.”
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